No proposal to abolish RTI fee: Govt

Business Standard: New Delhi: Thursday, 07 May 2015.

Government is not considering any proposal to abolish RTI fee of Rs 10 for seeking information from public authorities, Lok Sabha was informed today.

Minister of State for Personnel, Jitendra Singh, in a written reply, said, "At present, the government is not considering to abolish the RTI application fee. However, persons below poverty line are exempt from payment of RTI application fee."

In a separate reply, he also informed that CIC has imposed penalty against public information officers in only 87 cases for the year 2012-13 and 138 cases for the year 2013-14.

The Minister said Central Information Commission can recommend disciplinary action against a Public Information Officer while deciding a complaint.

"During 2012-13 and 2013-14, the Central Information Commission imposed penalty on Central Public Information Officers in 87 and 138 cases respectively. Penalty has not been recovered in nine cases for the year 2012-13 and in 51 cases for the year 2013-14," the minister said.

On the question of transferring the RTI applications, the Minister said as per section 6(3) of the RTI Act where an application is made to a public authority requesting information which is held by another public authority the officer shall transfer the application and inform the applicant.